PSA: tumblr user littlefuckinmonster is stealing human bones from cemeteries in Louisiana. Please don’t let them get away with this and spread the word/signal boost!
this post is officially a decade old now
For anyone who wasnt around when this happened, this was real. Littlefuckinmonster was actually stealing bones from cemeteries. She is the bone stealing witch. She was specifically stealing bones from poor people. She was arrested for it.
also one time i tried to type “Well hello, gorgeous slicks back my hair” and did it so bad that the last part somehow ended up as “steeps back my wasses” and now i can’t stop saying it.
steeps back my wasses. steeps. i’m steeping. steeping on my wasses.
I just saw an acquaintance use “👖🛝” in place of the word genocide and. like. at what point are we going to decide that this kind of self-censorship is too degrading to abide anymore.
“grape” “sui-slide” “the panini” I feel like I’m surrounded by Rugrats who overheard the grown ups talking about the news.
This is mean, but when I’m in a safe context to do so, I love pretending I don’t understand what they mean and forcing them to explain in plain language.
It’s not mean. You are so normal. If someone uses these terms when speaking to me directly I’m going to end up on the news.
Imagine being named Bobby McDonald or some shit and then living so long that both “Bobby” and “McDonald” enter the public lexicon as naughty words until you are essentially named “Penis Homosexual” and kids are afraid to write it down
Hello person having transgender thoughts but convinced they aren’t trans because they don’t have the requisite amount of dysphoria they think they need
Hi I transitioned without even thinking I had dysphoria. Like later in hindsight I can go “oh that’s probably what it was” but for the first year of my transition I was straight up like “I like being a guy but I like being a girl WAY more” and you can do that!! There is no prerequisite amount of suffering needed to make yourself happier.
For the love of god if your native language is different from the majority language of the country you’re living in don’t raise your baby speaking the local language. Either have each parent speak to them in a different language or only speak your native language at home. The kid will be okay. Get your native language in their head. You may think you’re helping them in the long term giving them the local language but no. When they’re an adult they’ll wonder why you never taught them your language. They can and will learn the local language in school. They’ll be okay. Produce more bilingual children. They are good for society.
And also, being bilingual helps with executive function. Not all kids have to reach the same language development at the same time as everyone else, it’s okay to have your kid speaking in more complex sentences a month or so later than the “normal” kids.
I’ve studied the science linguistically but I’d like to put that aside. PLEASE teach your kid the native language. It can go so much deeper than “wondering why”, it can create a schism-like pain when you know there’s a heritage you have but all access has been cut off. Yes, ALL. If you’re fortunate enough to visit the country of your native language but dont teach your kid, they will be miserable, quiet, and alone, and go through difficult phases of hating that heritage because the ladders were cut for them.
And in the United States, this starts young. I’ve seen teachers tell a Kazakhstani parent that she should tell her kid to speak English INSTEAD. The kid was 2 and a half. A friend’s five year old told him “Dad this is America we dont speak Chinese”. If you don’t teach your kid your native language this country will wrest all pride and heritage from them by force. An occasional visit or two to the home country will not stop the bleeding.
The pain of not speaking the language of my heritage is something I don’t wish on anyone. And that language is one of the most spoken in the world, imagine if your native language is rarer. What happens? What happens?
I was an ordinary native Hindi speaker until I was 6, and my Year 1 teacher contacted my parents. Don’t speak anything but English to her, because she’s already behind.
and my parents listened, not because they had no pride in their heritage, because they were unsure immigrants in a racist country raising a child 5000 miles from home. White people explain their ways are best. So it goes.
My all time favorite Hozier song is “Butchered Tongue” about the pain of Irish Gaelic being brutally stolen from them and how clinging to it and trying to revive what they have left is a deeply personal coming home within their hearts.
My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems.
This advice came from a well-meaning woman
with NZ poetry on her business card
and an English accent in her mouth.
I have been thinking about this advice.
The publishing convention of italicising words from other languages
clarifies that some words are imported:
it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language
and the language of home.
I have been thinking about this advice.
Marking the foreign words is also a kindness:
Every potential reader is reassured
that although obviously you’re expected to understand the rest of the text,
it’s fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics.
I have been thinking about this advice.
Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged —
but after a while I could see she had a point:
When the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type
you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place.
I have been thinking about this advice
and I have decided to follow it.
Now all of my readers will be able to remember
which words truly belong in Aotearoa and which do not.
One note from an Irish person with decent Irish. It is generally just called Irish/the Irish language in English. Referring to it Gaelic is a good way to land yourself in a bit of hot water with Irish people (though there’s more nuance to it than most Irish people know)
The most word most Irish people know/use is Gaeilge, being the used in both An Caighdeán Oifigiúil (Standard/school Irish) and Connaught (primarily Conamara). Gaelainn is the word used in Munster, while Gaelic is used in Ulster
Long before the introduction of color film, a Russian chemist and photographer named Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky used an innovative technique. He took three individual black and white photos, each through a colored filter (red, green, and blue), to create fully colored, high-quality pictures. The photo of this woman, taken by him, is around 107 years old!
No wait I looked this guy up and this shit’s amazing
It’s so incredibly humanizing to see people from the very distant past in such authentic color
And like. look at these landscape shots!! They’re so vivid!! Even aside from the historical value, these are just legitimately beautiful photographs
wish ppl understood the power nowadays in not giving something attention. things today are so focused on attention and reaction and #memes that the best way to shut literally anything down is simply not give it exactly what it wants. like you arent going to own that bigot on twitter youre going to boost their original message whether thats your intent or not and you arent just playing with ai for shits and giggles you are giving it free learning and data. just stop engaging with things that dont deserve it
ALT
